Chap. VI. FORMATION OF RACES. 215 



as we hear from Pliny ,^^ immense prices were given for 

 pigeons ; " nay, tliey are come to this pass, that they can 

 reckon up their pedigree and race." In India, about the 

 year IGOO, pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan : 

 20,000 birds were carried about with the court, and the 

 merchants brought valuable collections. " The monarch of 

 Iran and Turan sent him some very rare breeds. His 

 Majesty," says the courtly historian, " by crossing the breeds, 

 which method was never practised before, has improved them 

 astonishingly." ^* Akber Khan possessed seventeen distinct 

 kinds, eight of which were valuable for beauty alone. At 

 about this same period of 1600 the Dutch, according to 

 Aldrovandi, were as eager about pigeons as the Eomans had 

 formerly been. The breeds which were kept during the 

 fifteenth century in Europe and in India apparently differed 

 from each other. Tavernier, in his Travels in 1677, speaks, 

 as does Chardin in 1735, of the vast number of j^igeon- 

 houses in Persia ; and the former remarks that, as Christians 

 were not permitted to keep pigeons, some of the vulgar 

 actually turned Mahometans for this sole purpose. The 

 Emperor of Morocco had his favourite keeper of pigeons, as 

 is men,tioned in Moore's treatise, published 1737. In England, 

 from the time of Willughby in 1678 to the present day, as 

 well as in Germany and in France, numerous treatises have 

 been published on the pigeon. In India, about a hundred 

 years ago, a Persian treatise was written ; and the writer 

 thought it no light aifair, for he begins with a solemn in- 

 vocation, " in the name of God, the gracious and merciful." 

 Many large towns, in Europe and the United States, now 

 have their societies of devoted pigeon- fanciers : at present 

 there are three such societies in London. In India, as I hear 

 from Mr. Blyth, the inhabitants of Delhi and of some other 

 great cities are eager fanciers. Mr. Layard informs me 



Europeennes,' 1859, p. 399) states domestication of the pigeon in the 



that there are in the ancient Sanscrit East. 



language between 25 and 30 names '^ English translation, 1601, Book 



for the pigeon, and other 15 or 16 x. oh. sxxvii. 



Persian names ; none of these are com- ^* 'Ayeen Akbery,' translated by 



mon to the European languages. This F. Gladwin, 4to edit., vol. i. p. 270. 



fact indicates the anti(iuity of the 



